Future

Future

Featured Album

Essential Albums

  • HNDRXX
    HNDRXX
    HNDRXX

    Forever the over-indulger, Future dropped his fifth and sixth albums in the span of seven days in early 2017. Both FUTURE and HNDRXX debuted at No. 1, making the Atlanta rapper the first artist to release two chart-topping albums in consecutive weeks. But what’s even more remarkable about these back-to-back hits is the way in which they serve as companion pieces and counterpoints: While FUTURE hones in on the grimy trap bangers he’d proved he could write in his sleep, HNDRXX is lush, introspective and occasionally even…sweet? To fans who’d become accustomed to the anti-hero persona Future crafted on such mid-2010s hits as Monster and DS2, the softer side of Future likely came as a shock. But those who’d been listening since 2012’s Pluto knew the rapper had a sentimental streak: After all, this is the guy who once warbled about searching for his soulmate with a flashlight. HNDRXX allows Future to indulge his more romantic impulses. It’s also a showcase for one of his most fan-beloved alter egos: Future Hendrix, a figure the rapper describes as something of a rock-star Casanova with a penchant for the psychedelic. Though HNDRXX’s opening suite of songs wallow in some leftover bitterness, Future Hendrix soon shows up, as the album gives way to love-drunk crooners that shimmer like sunlight on an infinity pool—and reveal a rapper who’s ready to move on from all the hurt. On the island-inspired “Incredible”, the former Mr. Toxic Masculinity USA tries out hot yoga and texts cute emojis to his new partner, while the gently trippy “I Thank U” looks back on a former relationship with gratitude instead of spite. Scattered in the mix are a few bids for the mainstream airwaves, including a pair of cutesy duets with Rihanna and Nicki Minaj. Just a few years earlier, Future had sworn he was a monster, not a pop star. But who says we can’t have it all?

  • DS2 (Deluxe)
    DS2 (Deluxe)
    DS2 (Deluxe)

    The hiss of liquid poured over ice, an eerie Metro Boomin guitar line and a hypnotic rhyme—“Dirty soda, Spike Lee, white girl, Ice T, fully loaded AP”—that sounds like an arcane magic spell: That’s how Future opens his exquisitely toxic third album, right before he casually drops the year’s most twisted footwear-related flex. DS2 was released during the peak of summer 2015, back when the rapper’s buzz had never been bigger, thanks to the runaway success of his recent mixtape trilogy (Monster, Beast Mode, 56 Nights). The triumphant DS2—announced the week before its release—would serve as the capstone of Future’s anti-hero’s journey, one that he spells out on the fiendish “I Serve the Base”: “Tried to make me a pop star/And they made a monster.” The paradox of DS2—short for “Dirty Sprite”—is that it’s an album of wall-to-wall rippers dedicated to all sorts of depraved pleasures, over the course of which one begins to suspect its protagonist is having very little fun. “Best thing I ever did was fall out of love,” Future croaks on “Kno the Meaning,” an oral history of his comeback year. And while heartbreak has clearly done wonders for his creativity, the hedonism seems to be having diminishing returns: Never before have dalliances with groupies or strip-club acid trips sounded more like karmic punishments. As a result, the lifestyle captured on DS2 is better to listen to than to live through, thanks to massive-sounding beats from a murderer’s row of Atlanta producers—including Metro Boomin, Southside and Zaytoven—that range from “moody” to “downright evil”. Still, whether or not Future sounds happy on DS2, he does have plenty to celebrate: After all, in less than a year he’d flooded the market with enough top-shelf music to sustain entire careers. As he points out during the conclusion of “Kno the Meaning”: “My hard work finally catching up with perfect timing.”

  • Monster
    Monster
    Monster

    The first in a trio of album-quality mixtapes released in a five-month blitz between fall 2014 and spring 2015, there’s a solid argument to be made that Monster is Future’s most pivotal project. By the mid-2010s, the wild vocal experiment and infectious, post-Lil Wayne pop-rap that defined Future’s first few years had begun to stagnate. And despite the crossover success of his first two albums, the ATLien’s staying power seemed uncertain. Then came Monster, which was released just before Halloween, and which featured gruesome cover artwork that accurately reflected its contents. Monster is a primal scream from the id, and a total rejection of complacency. The tape’s wounded, snarling songs were born from heartbreak (Future’s engagement to R&B star Ciara had recently imploded). But Monster was also a pronouncement of the kind of artist Future wanted to be: not a pop star, but an anti-hero. And while Monster marks a return to form, it also vaults Future to a new tier of artistry, re-christening him as the king of the toxic-rap banger. “Radical” groans to life like the yawn of an ancient hell-mouth, while “Gangland” presents the rapper as a red-eyed vigilante whipping a Hummer through enemy turf. The Monster squad of producers—which includes Nard & B, Southside and ascendant newcomer Metro Boomin—understood the assignment: Make beats that sound downright sadomasochistic. But for all his insistence that he’s doing just fine on a diet of spite and chemicals, it’s Future’s vulnerability that gives the tape its power. “Throw Away” starts with two minutes of disaffected hedonism until the beat switches to reveal a shattering breakup ballad, with Future’s voice cracking as he wonders if his ex still thinks about him. Then there’s the closing track, “Codeine Crazy”, a TM88-produced masterpiece of lean-drenched anhedonia that could just as easily be called a blues song. It’s a crushing and catchy reminder of Future’s monster talents.

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About Future

Barely a season goes by without new music from the rapper born Nayvadius Wilburn in 1983—whether it’s a mixtape, a solo album or a collab with Drake, Gucci Mane or Metro Boomin. But prolific isn’t the half of it. Druggy, raw, slick and surreal, Future’s sound—crystallised on highlights like 2014’s Honest, 2015’s DS2 and 2017’s HNDRXX—helped to redefine 2010s street rap as something strange and almost avant-garde. Imagine trap as modern psychedelia, though still naggingly melodic. As with fellow Atlantan and collaborator Young Thug, Future has a way of bending his voice (often using Auto-Tune) into soulful, often sad shapes, half-rapped and half-sung—the sound of a crooner stuck in space. “The biggest thing is just being yourself all the time,” he told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe in early 2017. That unwavering self-assurance continues to define his work as he settles into middle age: Rather than mellowing with the years, he remains outspoken and unapologetic about his rock-star lifestyle. Observe 2022’s I NEVER LIKED YOU, which takes us on a guided tour of his high-drama adventures as a bachelor. And the fact that Future can still command cameos from Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd and Travis Scott means that he has lost none of his heavyweight status in the years since his groggy, grandiose breakthrough.

GENRE
Hip-Hop/Rap

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